Adobe Target and Marketo

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The Marketo acquisition by Adobe went from rumor to fact earlier today. This is a really good thing for the Adobe Target community.

I’ve integrated Adobe Target and Marketo together many times over the years and the two solutions complement each other incredibly well. Independent of this acquisition and of marketing automation in general, I’ve also been saying for years that organizations need to shift their testing programs such that the key focus is on the Knowns and Unknowns if they are to succeed. Marketo can maybe help those organizations with this vision if it is part of their Adobe stack since Marketo is marketing automation for leads (Unknowns) and customers (Knowns).

The assimilation of Marketo into the Adobe Experience Cloud will definitely deepen the integration between the multiple technologies but let me lay out here how Target and Marketo work together today so as to relay the value the two together bring.

Marketo

For those of you in the testing community that are unfamiliar with Marketo or Marketing Automation in general, let me lay out at a very high level some of the things these tools do.

Initially and maybe most commonly the Marketing Automation starts out with Lead Management space which means, when you fill out those forms on websites, the management of that “lead” is then handled by these systems. At that point, you get emails, deal with salespeople, consume more content, etc… The management of that process is handled here and if done well, prospects turn into customers. Unknowns become Knowns.

Once you are Known, a whole new set of Marketing and Customer Marketing kicks in and that is also typically managed by Marketing Automation technologies like Marketo.

Below is an image that was taken directly from Marketo’s Solution’s website that highlights their offering.

Image from: https://www.marketo.com/solutions/

Adobe Target

Just like Marketo, testing solutions like Adobe Target also focus on different audiences as well. The most successful testing programs out there have testing roadmaps and personalization strategies dedicated to getting Unknowns (prospects) to becoming Knowns (customers). And when that transition takes place, these newly gotten Knowns then fall into tests and personalization initiatives focused on different KPIs vs becoming a Known.

Combining the power of testing and the quantification/reporting of consumer experiences (Adobe Target) with the power of marketing automation (Marketo) provide a value significantly higher than the value these solutions provide independently.

Target into Marketo

Envision a scenario where you bring testing to unknowns and use the benefits of testing to find ideal experiences that lead to more forms completions. This is a no-brainer for Marketo customers and works quite well. At this point, when tests are doing their thing, it is crucial to communicate or share this test data to Marketo when end users make the transition from Unknowns to Knowns. This data will help with the management of leads because we will know what test and test experience influenced their transition to becoming a Known.

Just like Target, Marketo loves data and this code below is what Target would deliver with tests targeted to Unknowns. This code delivers to Marketo the test name but also the Adobe Target ID in the event users of Marketo wanted to retargeted certain Adobe Target visitors.

var customData = {value: ‘${campaign.name}:${user.recipe.name}’};

rtp(‘send’, ‘AdobeTarget’, customData);

var customData = {value: ‘${profile.mboxPCId}’};

rtp(‘send’, ‘AdobeTarget_ID’, customData);

Marketo into Target

Adobe Target manages a rich profile that can be made up of online behaviors, 3rd Party Data, and offline data. Many Target customers use this profile for strategic initiatives that change and quantify consumer experiences based off of the values of the profile attributes associated with this profile or Adobe Target ID.

In the Marketo world, there are many actions or events that take place as the leads are nurtured and the customers are marketed to. Organizations differ on how the specific actions or stages of lead or customer management/marketing are defined but no matter that definition, those stages/actions/events can be mirrored or shared with Adobe Target. This effort allows Marketo users to run tests online that are coordinated with their efforts managed offline – hence making those offline efforts more successful.

Push Adobe Target ID into Marketo

Marketo can get this data into Target in one of two ways. The first method uses the code that I shared above where the Adobe Target ID is shared with Marketo. Marketo can then generate a report or gather all Adobe Target IDs at a specific stage/event/action and then set up a test targeted to them. It is literally that easy.

Push Marketo ID into Adobe Target

The second method is a more programmatic approach. We have the Marketo visitor ID passed to Adobe Target as a special mbox parameter called mbox3rdPartyId. When Adobe Target sees this value it immediately marries its ID to that ID so that any data shared to Adobe with that ID will be available for any testing efforts. This process is one that many organizations use with their own internal ID. At this point, any and all (non-PII) data can be sent to Adobe Target by way of APIs using nothing more than the Marketo ID – all possible because it passed the ID to Adobe Target when the consumer was on the website.

And then the cycle repeats itself with Adobe Target communicating test and experience names again to Marketo but this time for the Knowns – thus making that continued management more effective.

Brian Hawkins has worked in the optimization and personalization sector since 2006, first as a Senior Consultant at Offermatica (acquired by Omniture in December, 2007) and then as a Sr. Enterprise Solutions Architect as part of Adobe’s Target group. At Analytics Demystified, Brian works directly with clients to deliver world-class site testing, optimization, and personalization capabilities. Brian published a book about Adobe Target in 2014 and has authored three white papers on optimization.
As an employee of Analytics Demystified, Brian is a member of the Digital Analytics Association (DAA), an Adobe Business Partner, and a Google Analytics Certified Partner. Brian is also the founder and CEO of MiaProva.